Letter From The Bureau Ep 5: How Japan lost reputation as needle-shifting tech innovators 

20:19 mins

Synopsis: The Straits Times' foreign editor Bhagyashree Garekar chats with ST’s correspondents in the Asia-Pacific, the US and Europe every month.

They talk about life as it goes on, amid the screaming headlines and bubbling crises.

In this episode, she chats with ST's Japan correspondent Walter Sim about the following:

1. Cultural resistance to change remains in Japan; how even vaccination passports are still paper-based (4:17)
2. How the 'Galapagos Island' syndrome has cost Japan (6:15)
3. Japan's strongest sectors and future prospects? (7:53)
4. How China has overtaken Japan in online payments and how it took made-in-Japan QR Code technology to a higher level (9:20)
5. Banking on oddball creativity for a cool Japan image, or even kawaii (cute) cultural product exports to improve its global 'soft' power (15:15)

Produced by: Bhagyashree Garekar ([email protected]), Ernest Luis, Hadyu Rahim & Fa’izah Sani

Edited by: Hadyu Rahim & Dan Koh

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